Former deputy says he had no time to wait before pulling trigger

Friday

Jan 13, 2017 at 5:22 PM

Holly Zachariah

WAVERLY " Former deputy sheriff Joel Jenkins turned Friday and looked at the jurors who soon must decide if he is guilty of murder. And told them that before he fired nine times and shot and killed a man one night almost two years ago, he begged the suspect to let it all end peacefully.

'I did say, 'Please don't do it,'' Jenkins said during his trial in Pike County Common Pleas Court on charges of murder and reckless homicide in the death of 26-year-old Robert C. Rooker.

Defense attorney Mark Collins asked what he meant when he said that as he approached Rooker's truck with his gun drawn.

'I thought he was retrieving a weapon,' Jenkins said, demonstrating for jurors how he said Rooker bent down in the cab of his Ford Ranger pickup and had come up with his right arm raised as if he had something in his hand.

'I was forced to fire my weapon,' Jenkins told jurors.

'Right before you pulled the trigger, did you believe he was going to kill you?' Collins asked.

Jenkins answered yes. And then he went on: 'I just don't have the time to wait and see. He could fire on me and I could be killed.

'If I wait for gunshots, it's too late.'

Investigators would later discover that Rooker had no gun.

Jenkins, 32, had been a road-patrol deputy with the Pike County Sheriff's Office a little more than two years when he shot Rooker after a 17-mile pursuit that started with a speeding violation and ended a little after 11:30 p.m. with Rooker's truck pinned between a tree and his cruiser along Fields Hollow Road in western Pike County.

Jenkins testified that after the pursuit had slowed, he saw Rooker's truck hit Maj. Tim Dickerson's cruiser while Dickerson was standing next to it, and that the major went out of Jenkins' view. He said things then escalated.

'It's right now, right now, right now. It's so fast, you almost couldn't think,' he said.

Collins asked him what he was thinking at that point.

He answered, 'I've got to get this individual stopped. He may have just killed a deputy.'

Somehow " exactly how remains in dispute " the cruiser and the truck ended up at the tree and the creek. Jenkins testified that his left hand got caught in his cruiser door and he was afraid for his life because he thought both vehicles would slide into the creek. That's when he let off an initial round of gunfire, he said. Then, he fired more rounds when Rooker raised his arm. Rooker was shot twice in the face, twice in the chest, in each arm and through his right wrist. A prosecutor called it an execution.

James J. Scanlon, a former, longtime Columbus police officer who now trains law enforcement officers and military in police tactics, testified as an expert witness Friday that Jenkins acted "as any reasonable peace officer would' and that the shooting was justified.

Jenkins is a father of two children and had had many relatives and friends in court to support him during the trial.

'Taking a human life is not something you ever want to do, trust me,' he said, choking up on the stand. 'It's something that's bothered me since.'

But this case isn't his only legal trouble. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless homicide and tampering with evidence in the fatal shooting of his 40-year-old neighbor nine months after Rooker died.

Jenkins told investigators then that the off-duty shooting of Jason Brady was an accident, that Jenkins had been showing a gun and it went off. He has pleaded not guilty. That case is pending in Pike County Common Pleas Court. Jurors have in his current trial have not been told of the second shooting.

After Jenkins testified Friday, the judge dismissed jurors for the weekend. The trial will resume Tuesday morning for closing arguments and then the jury is expected to begin deliberations. Jenkins could face up to life in prison if convicted.

hzachariah@dispatch.com

@hollyzachariah

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